Boleslav Orlickis Horse Artillery's field
gun ('Kismet') carriage design, illustrated below, is appropriate for general field
artillery and for horse artillery use. Advanced designs of this type were developed
in the mid 17th C. This actual illustration is from a French source, documenting
1730's revisions to a 1690's design (Diderots Le Encyclopedia Des
Armaments).

At Right, an early to late 17th Century carriage of the
older 'Spanish' style. This is a much larger piece, a 24 pdr., which might have been
used in the field but was more likely a siege gun. The carriage is nevertheless
typical of the period.

Wheels were shod with strakes (iron bars reaching from
mid-point of each felloe). The single-piece hoop-tyre method was not invented until 1820.
Wheelwrights gradually stopped using strake bands in the late 17th C. for
lightweight wheels for light pleasure carriages. It is possible that light horse artillery
also started to use wheels without strake bands relatively early. However, strake bands
continued to be used on heavy freight and cannon wheels as late as the19th C. See my
article This Old Wheel for more than you ever wanted to
know about wheels.

Right, an English carriage of the 1640s, quite similiar to
the Spanish design.

Right, a mid 1500's Polish design, very
advanced for its time, from dell'Aqua. The gun is fairly
short. The second illustration detials the ironwork for the carriage. Note the
proportion of the wheel in relation to the cannonball-size as a measuring standard. Note
also that the entire cheek is shod in metal. This allows the whole carriage to
be lighter, yet still stay strong - critical for light and mobile artillery. An
entirely metal-shod carriage is a major forward-looking design feature, that would become
standard in the 18th C.

Left, a Polish falconette (2 pdr) of the late 1500s.
Note the very light and comparatively large wheels. To the right, a Polish barrel of
the late 1600s.

Left,
Polish Artillery at Orza, 15th C.

Left, early version of practical
field artillery, illustration by Druer, 1527. I don't know if the fancy elevation
mechanism was used in practice, but it's possible. The big advance in the 1400s was the
invention of the trunnion.

These
two illustrations to the left show medium-light (perhaps 3 or 4 pounders) artillery pieces
entrained. They are being pulled by a team of horses, however, they are not using a
limber, so there is only one axle. The balance of the gun is close to even, with
only 30-50 pounds extra on the rear of the trail. The pull of the horses alone lifts the
trail, which has a skid beneath it. Definitely a slow-moving foot artillery rig.
Larger
guns, such as the 24 pdr above, were more likely to use limbers as a matter of
practicality.

In contrast to the 'Spanish' style foot artillery carriage,
the Polish horse artillery carriage typically had the following features: 1) Larger yet
lighter wheels (for easier rapid movement), 2) greater use of metal reinforcement,
allowing greater strength with less weight (the mid 1500's Polish carriage above is the
oldest design I know of that is entirely metal-shod), 3) Use of a limber with full-sized
wheels, and a traveler trunnion position to balance the load, 4) some hardware to
facilitate rapid limbering and unlimbering, 5) hand-spikes, for rapid field movement,
aiming and re-orientation. They seem also to me to have wider distance between
wheels, but that may be an illusion as the pieces are generally smaller - they may all
have been of the same standard wagon distance, to make use of road ruts (although, this
was not a universal standard, and even varied county-by-county in England). Horse
artillery guns also were the first pieces to use screw elevation quoins (probably 1660s),
which made for fewer parts to misplace on the battlefield.

The parts (right) from a six pdr. 17th C. Polish Carriage (detail from R. Brzezinski, Polish Armies 1569-1696, Osprey,
1987; this is in the Warsaw military museum and was revovered from the river
and thought lost after the battle of Warsaw, 1656)
seem to be of the Spanish foot artillery carriage type. Note the strake bands
are exactly as illustrated in Fig. 3 above, and one can clearly see the two types at the
felloe and strake joints.

The
carriage to the left is a 'galloper' - a specialized type of horse artillery. This
particular example is very early, from the 16th Century. It is the earliest example
I know of that uses a screw elevation mechanism.

Another Galloper - English ca 1740. This is for a 1 1/2 pounder,
although some were made for 3 pounders. The single horse is harnessed directly to
the cart-like carriage. This is from John Muller, who was so impressed by these he
suggested their use for 6 pounders.

A
galloper of sorts, mid 1500's Polish. This wagon-mounted one-pounder is probabally
intended to be used within a tabor wagon train. This is the sort of rig JanTarnowski referred to,
in his essay on mobile firepower.

The Swedish regimental field gun (right and left) of the
1630s seems to share some characteristics of both the older and newer carriage
forms. The barrel shown has an unusual design, with the touchhole angled sharply
back to the rear of the gun - this design may not have been standard. .Its most significant design feature - one shared with Polish light guns of
the period - is its short length and light weight.The tapered charge area is also a new feature for the period - the English
were using conical bores in their latest high-tech cast-iron tubes. Note the Gustavus Adolphus cipher and
Vasa 'wheat sheaf' device.

Turkish Cannons

Those devious Turks will stop at nothing! Must assume there
is another cannon on the other side for balance. Notice the lit match - ready to
fire?!?! Well, T.
Kosciuszku in his 1800 treatise Maneuvers of Horse Artillery (prepared for
the American army, published 1808) mentioned that when he first brought up the concept
some officers apparently thought that he meant that the artillery pieces were to be
strapped on the horse's back.

Seriously, though; the image may be an accurate portrayal of
cannons in transit, and the artist may have misunderstood... the lit match may be a bit of
his imagination. In fact the Turks' most numerous cannon in the field army was the
one and half-pounder, called shahi zarbzen , which wieghed 125 pounds. Two
such were carried by a strong packhorse; and a camel would have no problem with such a
load plus rider as well. The field carriages were carried dismantled on other pack
horses, or in wagons; or tripod firing stands could have been constructed in the field
from local materials. (The Scots used a similar system, with their lightest
cannons.)

The Turks were effective
engineers and their artillery use was good, really excellent in sieges. Because so
many of their operations were hundreds of miles from their major cities, they mastered the
practice of casting large cannon locally, when preparing for a siege. For example,
five 70 pdrs and three 50 pdrs were cast in preparation for the siege of Baghdad, and
rafted the remaining few miles to firing position. (R. Murphy, Ottoman Warfare 1500-1700)

A culverin of this period would
likely have been more ornamented than Kismet. While many late 17th C. guns had
plain dolphins, usually one or more devices (guns name, General of Artillery coat of
arms, Kings crest) would have been cast into the barrel. Many plain barrels were,
however, made; some have recently been found in a recovered shipwreak in Sweden.

The wheels were
constructed with hoop-tyres, which is achronistic until the 1830s, but are modified to
appear strake-constructed. Strake bands will be added at some point, which would have been
typical though most of the 17th C.

The carriage varies from
the design above primarily in having a wood axle, instead of an all-metal axle. We believe
that the all-metal axle came into use after 1700. The quoin elevation screw is probably
also a post 1650 invention - an alternate quoin platform and wooden quoins (wedges) is
switched in for prior-to 1650 impressions. All other aspects of the carriage, including
the alternate traveler position, trunnion hardware, etc. is accurate for at least 1630
through to the Napoleonic era.

If I could start over again, I would make larger,
lighter wheels, as shown in the Polish 2 pdr. to the left. Instead of 39 inch, that
would be about 41-42 inch wheels, with a lighter construction.

The carriage is painted royal
blue (a medium-dark blue which looks light blue in the picture, because of the sunlight),
because my research at the time led me to believe that was the color of French artillery
(who usually picked blue to go with Bourbon white), and it would work well enough for a
Swedish or Polish or even American Rev War militia gun. I have since learned that French
artillery was painted bright red in the late 17th C., but they likely were
varied colors prior to 1680, or even in 1690 the red color may have applied only to the
larger ordinance. (Spanish guns were painted all black, but perhaps not until after 1700).
Most guns of the 17th C were NOT painted gray, contrary to modern
expectations.

Guns similar to Kismet

Kismet  Bronze undecorated, 2000

Length 900 mm

Caliber 57 mm (2 pdr)

Length/caliber ratio: 16

Location: My garage

Existing Polish cannons (armat or dzial (dz-aow))
like Kismet. The following all have private (or palitinate or county) markings
rather than Crown or Lithuanian markings, so were not part of the official
artillery establishment.